In Deadhouse Gates book, the Chain of Dogs storyline, Keneb remembers when he last heard the word Jhistal which causes him to find Blistig. Blistig doesn't march out of Aren based on this information. What is the significance of the word Jhistal to Keneb which clues him in that Mallick Rel will betray the Empire?

I’m currently reading LoB. Random thoughts on the world.
Do the warrens and holds give substance and stability to the world? Like the environment and workings of nature? Like, is magic one of the lifebloods and foundations of its reality? Would the world cease to be able to function if the warrens and holds disappeared? I guess my underlying confusion is, if Icarium created all of these new warrens, why isn’t the world way more screwed up IF the warrens and holds up until then where responsible for its creation and stability?

I am currently reading House of Chains, but I'm getting a bit confused about the hierarchy and size of the Malazan military.

My understanding is that size goes from largest to smallest:

Army, Legion, Company, Squad. Am I correct? What is the size of these groups, how many companies make up a legion etc?

After I finish NoTME, I plan on reading one of those two but can't decide which, any advice to give?

Since i feel like i already passed the peak of this amazing series, here's my actual ranking of the books i've read:

1. Deadhouse Gates
2. Toll the hounds
3. Gardens of the Moon
4. Memories of ice
5. House of Chains
6. The Bonehunters
7. Midnight Tides
8. Reaper's Gale

My dream rewrite would be a five-book series: books 1–4, followed by a reworked Toll the Hounds as the finale. Anomander Rake’s sacrifice would also lead to the death of the Dying God, reimagined as the Crippled God’s liberated reincarnation. Bringing those threads together into one final climax, across five dense, tightly woven books, would have been perfect for me.

Share your thoughts about your ranking compared to mine :)

The T'lan Imass are supposed to be just terrifyingly skilled, with hundreds of thousands of years of practical experience to draw on (at least in Tool's case). What do you picture this looking like in your theater of the mind?

I imagine them not quite walking corpses, but very slow and stiff, but all of a sudden become hyper fast and almost jedi like when they fight.

So I saw Amazon India updating the Malazan paperback covers (as listed in the new Penguin Random House re-prints). Now at first I assumed that some copies of new re-prints are already available and since the pricing has become quite reasonable too, I ordered the first book in the series. However today I did some research and saw that new re-prints won't be available till Februrary 2027. Now I am assuming that I will be getting the old paperback cover edition (2nd image).

So, while this doesn’t affect me personally (I maintain a Bantam Trade Paperback collection), I asked them about this since we had seen so many people complaining on the sub. Not the best news, but it’s at least nice to see them acknowledging the issue and making sure it doesn’t propagate.

It might be worth highlighting to them again for the 4th Witness novel, Walk in Shadow, and the next two Path to Ascendancy Novels too. Once we have confirmations from Erikson & Esslemont on those going to publishers, let’s remember to email them about it.

This from chapter 8 of NLF. Made me laugh. Is this a deliberate attempt to avoid using the word potsherd? Was the context just not right for a potsherd in this instance? Has the fandom ridicule given Erikson a complex about this word. Did he hope no one would notice? There is no broken pottery in Malazan, only potsherds. I want my potsherds!

Choosing Duiker as one of the main narrators of Deadhouse Gates was genius by Erikson. It makes the second book in the series so much easier to understand, IMHO.

For a fantasy series as sprawling, confusing, and historically dense as Malazan, what better choice than to make a historian one of its central narrators?

Duiker is trained to see events in context, recognize patterns, and understand the intricacies of empires rising and falling. And yet he remains trapped in the present, unable to know how events will unfold or what meaning posterity will assign them. He is not omniscient. This creates tension. We experience the Malazan world through someone who understands the forces shaping events but cannot stand outside them. He gives us knowledge without sacrificing uncertainty.

There's something fitting about a historian bearing witness to the human cost of empire. Epic fantasy can feel sprawling, abstract, and impersonal. Duiker reminds us that behind every grand narrative are individual lives, most of whose stories will never be told. How often does he reveal the plight of those who, having lost a battle, risk losing not only their future but their place in history itself?

For a series so concerned with memory and the cycles of civilization, what better choice than to make a historian its storyteller?

I have seen quite a few posts about legacies of betrayal being a larger size, but am happy to see Bantam kept the same size.

Why do the Bonehunters march with Mandata Tavore towards Kolanse? I mean the common soldiers who die like flies in the desert. What‘s their motivation?

In an interview with the youtube channel Systems Change Alliance, represented by Carolina, Steven Erikson gave one of the main thematic elements he included within The God is Not Willing, quoted as saying “I asked myself before I started the novel: What is the role of a soldier? And then I set about exploring that… and explore the notion of acting in service to something greater than oneself.” (24:30 - 25:35) This gives a part of the central thesis of this novel, being an exploration of the duty of a soldier, beyond their patriotic duties or civic duty to their nation, but instead the duty they hold to the civic community of people in general, be they part of the nation employing them or not. In this instance for the diegesis of the text, it is the marines in service to the Malazan Empire, and the mercenaries of Balk’s Company, employed by the Jheck. Throughout the text, we see examples of soldiers doing what they do for reasons summarily not related to the welfare of the Empire at large, and often, to its and their potential detriment.

The God is Not Willing follows ten years after the events of Steven Erikson’s ten-book epic Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which itself featured many soldiers both from and not from the titular Malazan Empire. In many instances, references to events of the preceding series pop up throughout the sequel, with characters from that series also appearing in the sequel. Being from a shared universe, parallels between the two are not unexpected, yet the specific themes Steven Erikson speaks of were present throughout the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, though more broadly put out with regards to a central theme of compassion. The God is Not Willing takes a specific aspect of that compassion – being that of the soldiers – and applies it in full force, seeing what that role of soldiers is. Often, parallels between events of the books highlight this, while also serving as reinforcement of previously seen thematic events, playing off one another.

A forefront example of this can be found between book seven of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Reaper’s Gale, and several events within The God is Not Willing. Within Reaper’s Gale, we see the malazan soldiers (Bonehunters), marching on the city of Lether, harried by the conquesting Tiste Edur who took control of the city some years past. At the city itself, Letherii sit with a trap in mind, though not only for the Bonehunters, but also the Edur behind them, betraying them. Within this moment, all of them face death, only for the soldier Beak to use an excessive amount of sorcerous ability to save his fellow soldiers. At this moment, the Edur fear they have lost, and will die while the Malazans survive. Yet in this moment, though they are enemies, Sergeant Fiddler of the Bonehunters extends his hand, allowing the Edur into the protective shell created by Beak. Beak himself was stated to have been “happy to save them.” (Reaper’s Gale, ch. 22)

An example of compassion for the Edur is shown, with the understanding that, though they are enemies, they need not all die because of it. The soldiers choose instead to save them, as more than anything, their duty is not to kill people, but to give justice to something unjust. They come to avenge the people of Sepik, and to end the tyranny of the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths. The Edur, while their combatants, are not their enemy. The understanding of the soldiers that a genocidal march was never the intention and, above all, just as unjust as what happened to the people of Sepik, is prevalent here. They show that in their goals, everyone is involved, that their duty is to all people, not just their own.

Much later chronologically, within The God is Not Willing, Malazan soldiers fight directly against a charge of peoples from the north moving south. Fighting does ensue, munitions going off, people dying by the score, as the Malazans fare much better than the peoples they fight against. Soon into the fighting, however, the reason for the peoples’ flight north becomes apparent as a rushing flood moves towards them, threatening them all with death. The Malazans have very obviously before them the option of retreating behind city walls, leaving the Teblor and others to their fate. Instead, they rush forward to help their enemy regroup and find safe haven, or, if they couldn’t, stay behind and try to protect them with sorcery. The soldiers risk their lives to defend those who moments ago they themselves were defending against, and in this effort, they themselves die. One soldier is even told that their sorcery does not work while near the Teblor, and even so, he responds with “We know that.” (The God is Not Willing, ch. 19)

This marine dies in his efforts, and in his failure he apologizes to the enemy he couldn’t save. With the imagery we are treated to two similar scenarios, one more mystical than the other but nonetheless lethal and appropriately devastating. One soldier is bombarded by a wave of insurmountable magical death, the other by a crushing wave of flooding sure to kill him. In both instances, we see soldiers going against what guarantees their own survival, putting others into the fold of their instinct to live, and above it. With the Bonehunters they risk giving the Edur another chance to battle, and with the soldiers of Fourteenth Legion, they risk both giving their enemies another chance to battle (this time without the luxury of a minefield in front of them), and risk their own lives to defend them against something clearly undefendable against. We see soldiers putting their own lives and giving their own lives to do what they believe is more just, defending the lives of others, irrespective of circumstances.

Earlier in The God is Not Willing, we see the marines Benger, Anyx Fro, and Stillwater go to the home of Sarlis, a denizen of Silver Lake afflicted by the curse of blood-oil, which has tormented her for many years since her rape by Karsa Orlong in book four of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, House of Chains. She suffers, to the point of needing to drive her son away from her to protect him, and has enforced her work as a prostitute, summarily warding herself off from the community around her barring those who use her services. She contemplates suicide, and threatens it. Overall, her life is one of struggle and great anguish for what she has experienced and continues to experience under the curse of the blood-oil. The soldiers intend to attempt to cure her of the affliction, knowing both the danger as well as the difficulty. Beyond this, they know that it is not their duty on paper as soldiers to do this. On the matter, Benger states “We’re Malazan marines… so what’s our job… We help where we can.” (The God is Not Willing, ch. 15)

As the attempt to heal ensues, Stillwater and Anyx Fro converse on what they are doing. On the subject of being a soldier, specifically a marine in this instance, Stillwater says “Even our officers aren’t in charge,”, “No, we’re here as servants of every citizen of the empire.” (The God is Not Willing, ch. 15) She then goes on to express that soldiers who don’t adhere to this are not soldiers. They have a slight back and forth about how marines do not listen in the face of authority, wherein Anyx Fro asserts “More like we don’t give a fuck, period.” (The God is Not Willing, ch. 15) Stillwater retorts by saying “But we do… I was whispering that we actually care.” (The God is Not Willing, ch. 15)

This shows the selfless attitude of the soldiers, of how they believe their duty is more than to the banner that flies above their heads. The entire voyage of the Bonehunters undertaken in the name of seeking justice for the people of Sepik follows this theme, as the Bonehunters directly sail away from the empire they serve, deserting. In The God is Not Willing, we see that this mentality and belief in the soldiers’ own purpose goes beyond a larger scope, and narrows down to even individual plight. Sarlis is one person suffering, and so the soldiers feel it their duty to right the situation, to help those they can. This speaks to the final undertaking of the Bonehunters in Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God, books nine and ten of the preceding series.

The Bonehunters march to Kolanse, at their own peril, for they must cross the Glass Desert, thought to be uncrossable. Further, they intend to fight against a deadly array of opponents, including armies of foreigners, powerful Forkrul Assail, as well as K’Chain Nah’ruk. At first the undertaking was thought irresponsible and foolish by many of the soldiers, with the Adjunct Tavore Paran the sole driving force for a great deal of the journey. Mutiny is threatened, desertion, and worse, infighting among the troops. Tavore Paran is required to have compassion enough for an entire army in order to achieve her goal of freeing the Crippled God, a being tortured for millennia and nearly without allies.

By the end, the soldiers fight for the Crippled God, one man an entire army sacrifices themselves to defend. Yet around the mound they choose to fight, an unnamed soldier asks aloud “So, who are we fighting for again?” (The Crippled God, ch. 24) Responded to by another anonymous soldier with “Everyone.” (The Crippled God, ch. 24) In this moment, we come to an understanding from the soldiers that, though they fight for one man, they also fight for the collective of humanity. They are soldiers who, in the face of injustice against anyone, they will respond. They fight for something they believe above themselves, above everyone, because it is for everyone that they soldier.

Even Balk’s Company, a group of mercenaries who fight for a contract instead of national pride or a duty to something, succumbs to this ideology of the other soldiers. By the end, Balk, who had fought both against the Malazan soldiers, as well as tried to trick them while under their employment, held to their standard of fighting for the purpose of helping others. Under heavy scrutiny and urging from his soldiers to do away with the contract to help the Jheck across empire territory, Balk does not give in, instead choosing to do what the Jheck both hired him to do, even when compelled by the idea that the Jheck will kill and consume him and his men while starving. This can be attributed to the soldiers duty presented throughout the series rubbing off on them, as it did with the prisoners towed along to the battle of Lightfall in Kurald Galain in Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God. The two parallel in that even ordinary citizens or mercenaries, soldiers who primarily fight for the promise of payment, feel the responsibility of the position of soldier presented throughout the Malazan Book of the Fallen and The God is Not Willing.

Within The God is Not Willing, we come to see that these ideals were not forgotten over the chronological gap between the two series. The theme of a soldier's purpose is answered by action and by word. Stillwater’s quote about caring is a repeated echo of the Bonehunters’ will to fight for the world and all the people on it. More examples exist, from Spindle’s promise to the Jheck that they are welcome within the empire and the will of the soldiers at Lightfall to fight for the Tiste Andii. It is represented in Anomander’s will to fight to save a life, even telling Stillwater in The God is Not Willing that saving a life is the only reason needed to do something difficult, at personal detriment or disturbance. The theme of soldiers throughout resonate back and forth, echoes of the past reinforced in the future of the secondary world, taken to show a great tapestry of the purpose of a soldier, fighting for more than oneself, fighting for others everywhere, for the reason that it is something to care about, and is just.

just found out about 2 authors, 20 something books, a prequel, tabletop game and some other series. is it best to read the whole core malazan series through or should I interweave the prequels and side stories in with the main one.

thanks

I’m about 90% through Toll the Hounds with two books left, and I wanted to see whether my frustrations are shared or whether I’m missing something.

What I love: Erikson’s prose is some of the best in fantasy. The dialogue is sharp, the action is excellent, the settings are vivid, and when the musings land, they really land. Maybe 60% of them engage me, and a few have genuinely stuck with me. “Children are dying” and “compassion is given freely” are lines I’ll remember for a long time. The series is great, and that’s exactly why I find the problems frustrating.

1. Too much at once. After Midnight Tides, the POV count balloons, and the cost is that the stakes get diluted. It’s hard to care about a new character when I’ve only just met them and the book has to split its time across a dozen others. It hurts most at climaxes. I’m deep into a duel I care about, then I get a paragraph break and 20 pages of Nimander, a character I couldn’t care less about, before I can get back. The same thing happened in Memories of Ice, where I was in the middle of a battle and got pulled away to Mhybe for four pages. Cutting away isn’t the issue, since some of it works. But it keeps happening at the worst moments, and over time it breeds resentment that makes the climaxes land worse.

2. Threads that go nowhere. LOST is my favourite show ever, and I know it gets flak for throwing things at the wall, but Malazan makes it look disciplined. Plot lines get dropped, sometimes within the same book, and I end up wondering why they were introduced at all. Banaschar and D’rek in The Bonehunters looked like they’d lead to some eerie cult storyline, and nothing came of it. Reaper’s Gale teases an Icarium vs Karsa fight for the entire book, and it doesn’t happen. Even the Crippled God hasn’t intimidated me once, 90% of the way through Toll the Hounds. I get that Erikson likes subverting expectations, but there’s a difference between subverting a payoff and just never delivering one.

3. The magic and the dream sequences. I don’t need hard magic. Elder Scrolls and LOTR don’t have it either, and I love both. But soft magic works when it’s mysterious or at least consistent, and here it’s both unconstrained and constantly used to solve problems. The dreamworld and warren sections are the worst offenders. Udinaas’s chapters in Midnight Tides and Reaper’s Gale, and Quick Ben’s and the Hedge’s journey in Reaper’s Gale left me with no idea what I was meant to take away, whether it was worldbuilding, metaphor, or just plot. They felt like they only made sense to Erikson.

4. Power-ups and twists that don’t feel earned. This has been there since book one. Tattersail blows up and comes back as Silverfox. Paran goes from a young captain to Master of the Deck. Touching a hound’s blood somehow puts him inside the sword that killed it. A gift from a Tano spirit walker eventually makes the Bridgeburners ascendants and a perfect deus ex machina in House of Chains Even Memories of Ice’s biggest moment, Itkovian taking the pain of the Imass and the memories becoming ice that revives their dead warren, left me feeling something epic and poignant, but also confused about how the mechanics worked. It felt like Erikson wrote each idea as it occurred to him, not like it was building toward something. A few of these twists fit cleanly, but most seem to come out of nowhere.

5. Communication, not intelligence. I think I’m an adequate reader. When I follow a musing or a piece of worldbuilding, it’s pure fantasy exhilaration. But sometimes I think the problem isn’t that it’s meant to be hard to follow. I think Erikson had something clear in his head and it just didn’t make it onto the page. The logic of the world and the meaning of some of the laments and railings seem to exist fully in his mind and only partly in mine.

None of this makes it a bad series. I’m obviously invested, and I’ll finish it. But I think it could have been better with fewer POVs, tighter payoffs, and clearer communication.

Do others share these frustrations? Did they bother you, or do they get resolved or feel different on a reread? Please no spoilers past Toll the Hounds, right now I'm at the part where Rake is fighting Dassem and took a breather because I had been reading for 4 hours straight and also to vent a bit.

My ideal Malazan would have been five books, ending with a reworked Toll the Hounds

Malazan has given me some of the most powerful reading experiences of my life. But the further I get into the series, the more I find myself imagining a shorter version: five dense, tightly woven books, built around books 1–4, with a substantially reworked Toll the Hounds as the finale.

Obviously, this would require a massive rewrite. I’m talking about a different overall structure, with the major conflicts and character arcs developed toward a shared ending.

For me, the Letheras storyline is where I first started feeling that Erikson was losing his grip on the story. I don’t mean that the writing suddenly became bad, or that those characters and ideas have no value. There’s a lot there to admire. But that was the point where the expansion of the world started working against my investment in it.

After four books spent building attachments and trying to understand how the different conflicts fit together, being moved into another enormous setting, with another cast and another political and historical framework, felt exhausting. I wanted the existing threads to deepen and converge. Instead, I felt I was being asked to start the process of finding my bearings all over again.

And it wasn’t just the change of location. It was the growing sense that every answer opened several more questions, and every storyline brought another layer of history, metaphysics, or deliberate uncertainty. I enjoy having to work as a reader, but eventually that uncertainty stopped feeling intriguing and started becoming a barrier to emotional involvement. I could still appreciate individual scenes while feeling increasingly disconnected from the direction of the series as a whole.

That’s why Toll the Hounds feels so compelling to me as the foundation for an alternative ending. Anomander Rake’s sacrifice has the emotional weight and sense of culmination I would want from a series finale. My dream rewrite would bring the Crippled God’s storyline into that same climax.

In this version, the Dying God would be reimagined as the Crippled God’s liberated reincarnation: a being finally freed from his original imprisonment, but still shaped and corrupted by everything he had suffered. His liberation would therefore become part of the final crisis, with the consequences of that suffering reaching their culmination.

Rake’s sacrifice would also lead to the Dying God’s death, bringing those threads together in one final convergence. It could preserve the tragedy and compassion of the story while giving the central conflict a resolution inseparable from one of its most powerful character moments.

What appeals to me is the possibility of five books in which the density steadily builds toward that ending. The mysteries, detours, and histories would still be there, but their relationship to the final climax would feel stronger.

I understand that the sprawling scale is a huge part of what other readers love about Malazan. For me, though, a more concentrated version could have preserved everything that made me fall in love with it while avoiding the fatigue I started feeling around Letheras. Five books ending on a reworked Rake sacrifice would have been my ideal version.

The first 10 books of Steven and then the 6 of Ian. Finished Assail yesterday. Which ones are best next? Korbals series?

There are so many different posts contradicting eachother im not sure what to pick.

Hey guys, I just started reading this series and heard lots of good things about it and specifically it’s world building and magic realism, I gave it a try and at first the characters just seemed really boring and bland, with nothing interesting or even well written. Then with chapter five the characters immediately started having way more depth in just a couple of pages and the writing as well. The tone also just improved drastically. Is this common among readers of the first book or am I just being insane because I’m super invested all of a sudden and was thinking of dropping only a few hours ago

For context I have just started the section deadhouse gates in deadhouse gates so please no spoilers beyond that

What is an Azath and tremelor?

I remember it like was a thing in gardens of the moon how an azath house imprisoned the jag tyrant cause like one is created at a place of great power if I have that correctly

So currently in deadhouse gates they just got to like the place where the fake path of hands lead to? Fiddler and crew all decide to go in? Is that an azath house? And like what is tremelor? If that’s something that’s like a reveal later don’t tell me but with this series I can never know if it was like an offhand comment a book ago that completely flew over my head but ends up being super critical to the plot. I’m having fun I swear

Thought some of you might appreciate my reread experience!

Watching this LLM going "I could tell the user this. But his instructions were quite clear. Let me think some more before I tell him anything. Blah blah blah." This thinking aloud and talking about me as if I cant see what its saying reminded me of the High Priest of Shadow.